Mrs. G's Journey to Better Health

Drinking plain water is a challenge for me. It needs to be cold. After a while, drinking cold water also becomes a challenge. Flavoring the water is my next step, Kool-Aid or ice tea. So far these two flavored drinks are working for me. In order for them to count as water, they need to be 0 calories. In general, regular sugar is listed as having 9 calories per serving. That can add up quickly since I am aiming to drink six to eight glasses of water a day. Four servings of sugar per drink would be 216 - 288 calories. For easy math, I'm looking at 300 calories taken out of daily caloric budget. Grrrr. A zero calorie sweetener would be a better choice. According to Splenda (R), they are a zero calorie sweetener. Yahoo! I started adding it to my drinks. Hmm... Splenda is made from real sugar? Wait. How did they pull this off. It tastes sweet like sugar, but not exactly like sugar. According Splenda's website: http://www.splenda.com/products/packets "Each packet has less...

Having a weight loss support system is important. Unfortunately we do not always get it from the sources we want it from, we have difficulty finding it, and maintaining the quality of the support are all challenges.Today I was reminded of many challenges I have encountered with respect to support.  When I first started my weight loss journey, I had people tell me I had to loose X number of pounds, I was fine the way I was, or they did not care either way. Well, the first group of people were nuts. I was not about to turn my world upside down, become a gym rat and eat like rabbit forever to please them. The second group, they were and still are, overweight themselves. The third group, well, I do not talk about my weight loss goals with them.  Ugh! I want to loose weight but feeling alone in the journey was so overwhelming. Starting the journey seemed impossible. How to start the weight loss journey and not feel all alone in an uphill battle? For some crazy reason, I thought...

Losing weight, getting fit, running my 1st 5K, ... these are a few of my goals for 2014. I have tried before but have been unsuccessful. I feel I do a good job, for a while, then something happens and I put "my" goals on the back burner. What can I do differently in 2014? Set up smaller goals building up to one the big goals. I want to run my first 5K. Well, I need to get up off my butt and start walking, a mile, 2 miles, 3 miles, and keep decreasing the time it takes me to travel the 5miles. Yes, I am aiming to be able to run 5 miles so that when I run the 5K (3.3miles) I'm already building up toward another goal (running a half marathon). I also am aiming to run my first 5K by March, April at the latest. *sigh* I hope I am not being over zealous. By the way, I have heard of Couch to 5K and I do plan on using it. I use the LoseIt app to track my caloric intake. So far in 2015, I have logged everyday. While 5 days does not seem like a long time, it has been a challeng...

Today could have gone bad. Yes, I went over my daily caloric budget. I did not spiral out of control. Skipping breakfast is not a good thing. It was not intentional, I slept in. Because I skipped breakfast I felt I could afford a bigger lunch. A 900ish calorie lunch was a lot! Next time, smaller portion of chips and chilli. Dessert was good, jicama and watermelon. Almost missed my walk due to laziness. Lunch kept dangling on my mind, so I did not let laziness win. I did go for a 1.5 mile walk.  Dinner was another 900ish calories. Fortunately I only ate 3 of the 6 turkey meatballs.  Then came a very tempting tray of dessert. I could have inhaled the entire tray of cream puffs. Instead, I had 4 and took a picture of them. The day is done. Everything I ate was logged into my LoseIt app. Over budget. But not out if control.  One day at a time. One step closer to my goal.

Went over my daily caloric budget. A domino effect messed me up. I was planning on going for a 1.5 mile walk in the late afternoon. I didn't go for the walk. While doing laundry, darn washing machine water leak threw me off. This is the part that broke and caused the leak in the washing machine.

I realize it's only the first day of 2014, and so it is of no surprise I am off to a good start. None the less, it is a good start. My successes today included: Taking a 20 minute 1 mile walk. Logging everything I ate on the LoseIt app. ( http://www.loseit.com/ ) Logged everything  I ate on the MyFitnessPal app. ( http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ ) Stayed within my daily caloric budget. Used MapMyFitness to track my walk. ( http://www.mapmyfitness.com/ ) Listed to one health related podcast. ( http://logicalloss.com/ ) It is redundant to log everything in two different program/apps. I was using LoseIt at first, I like it very much. I used it on my iPhone 3 for a long time. Unfortunately when the iPhone 5c and 5s came out, my phone stopped getting iOS updates. No updates means my app stopped being fully supported. I started looking for alternatives and a friend suggested MyFitnessPal. Well, I started using MyFitnessPal. When my iPhone 3 finally died out, I broke down and upg...

Happy New Year! May your new year's resolution be easily reached.